A young, beautiful bride walks down the aisle on her bridegroom’s arm, but he is clearly old enough to be her grandfather. Not a soul looks happy about this wedding, especially the young fellow at left who is clearly the man she should be marrying. The bride casts her eyes downwards so that she doesn’t have to face his accusatory gaze. When Leighton first sent this painting to the Academy, he titled it ‘L.S.D.’ but that acronym had a different meaning in the Victorian age. LSD came from the Latin ‘librae, solidi, denarii,’ which stood for pounds, shillings, pence. We infer that the bride is digging for gold.
